GROWING FROM GRIEF

July 17, 2022

Main Scripture: Jeremiah 29:11, Deut. 8:2-5

Additional Scriptures: Eccl. 3:1-4, Psalm 42:3,5, 43:2, 88:6-7, 2 Pet. 3:9, John 12:24, Isa. 43:19

POINTS:

• We all experience loss.

• Two types of loss: devastating and normal.

• We are all affected differently by loss differently.

• We don’t deal with our loss in healthy ways because we don’t like grappling with the truth that we aren’t in control.

• When we don’t process loss God’s way, we turn inward and self-soothe.

• Blaming others for our loss is a form of self-soothing that detaches us from God and from one another.

• God created us for attachment. Attachment to Him and to one another.

• 3 phases to growing from grief God’s way:

• Pay attention to pain and process it with God in prayer.

• Wait on God while in the confusing in-between by practicing repentance.

• Allow the old the birth the new

• Cruciformity: to live your life constantly forming and attaching yourself to Jesus and to others in the shape of a cross.

How could we ever be conformed to the image of our Suffering Savior if we never suffered?